The Fifth
Door: Transcendence Complements Engagement

hen
I first learned to meditate,it
had a profound effect on my way of
thinking.
In a meditative state, I was able to lift my
consciousness outside of my ego, separate myself
from my own thoughts and feelings. The sights and
sounds and scents of the world were no longer
things I had to interpret and react to, they were
allowed to just be. When I was learning to
meditate, I approached it in the usual kind of way:
finding a time and place free of distractions,
closing eyes, sitting still. This sort of
ritualized preparation gives you a head start, but
reducing the external stimuli that might distract
you and pull you out of a meditative
state.

But it
wasn't long before I "got it", and could enter a
meditative state whenever I chose to do so. Once I
had had enough experience with it to know what it
felt like, I could more or less turn it on or
off like a switch. It amuses some people when
I confide that one of my favorite places to
meditate is a crowded airport. That's an
environment full of things that impinge on the
senses: a veritable ocean of sounds, shapes, and
movement. Yet what makes these things distracting
is that we habitually interpret them and
seek out their relevance to our personal ego
agenda. If you don't interpret the sights and
sounds, but just allow them to be present in your
awareness, then a busy airport is really no
different from a quiet, darkened room with soft
music playing.

There's
nothing quite like the peace of mind that comes
from lifting out of the concerns of the ego, and
just letting the world flow on like a swirling
filigreed dance. From that vantage point, it is
very easy to grasp the essential wisdom of many of
the worlds mystical traditions, that the world is
an illusion, a play of maya to distract the
senses and capture the attention of the
unenlightened. When I return from a meditative
state, I often feel that my problems and
concerns have been put into perspective. I can
given them some attention without being overwhelmed
by them. It's like my mind has been cleansed, and I
can place my own thoughts lightly on the blank
background.

After
some time working with a meditation practice, I
found that something unexpected was happening.
Increasingly often, there were moments when
I would feel much more connected with the
world than ever before: a moonrise would bring
me to tears, autumn air on my face would bring me
into full and complete presence, a friend's face
would become suddenly rich with meanings. Rather
than going to a place of blissful detatchment from
the world of the senses, I would be swept up into a
state of blissful attachment, fully engaged
in the world, and unable to see it as anything but
fully and ecstatically real.

Most
religions and spiritual paths harbor a tension
between the poles of transcendence (rising out of
the world and experiencing a greater spiritual
reality) and engagement (actively participating in
the world, perhaps with the goal of making it a
better place). Some philosophers of religion have
suggested that this is because religious begin with
a core mystical experience or insight, but then
become co-opted by social authorities with a more
pragmatic agenda. In this view, institutionalized
religion's emphasis on rules of behavior and
world-bound activities holds people back from the
mystical transcendence they ought to be pursuing as
spiritual beings.

There's
some truth in that. Mystical transcendence is not a
state that everyone can get to easily, and it is
notoriously difficult to maintain the mystical
perspective when you come back down and get
involved in life again. It's hard to describe and
hard to teach. And because the transcendent
perspective makes the rules and customs of life
seem arbitrary, perhaps even trite, it is something
of a threat to the social order. To put it
cynically, unenlighted people are easier to
manipulate, and avoiding enlightenment is a path of
least resistance for many.

On the
other hand, my own experiences of blissful
engagement make me question the idea that
mystical transcendence is somehow the one and only
spiritual truth. I'm not enough of a gnostic to
believe that the physical world is somehow and evil
distraction contrived to keep me from understanding
my true spiritual nature. In my own experience,
mystical transcendence enriches worldly life,
rather than discrediting it.

I think
there is a lesson to be learned from nautre-based
religions, many of which conceive deity as a
complementary pair: a sky-father and an
earth-mother. The sky god is an icon of
transcendence, looking down on the world from his
lofty height, aloof and untroubled by its chores
and labors. The earth goddess is fully present in
that business of living; she is the soil under the
farmer's fingernails.

Western
culture took a strange turn when ancient Judaism
became monotheistic, and the transcendent sky
father became the one and only face of deity.
Physicality became wrong (or, at least, a seductive
distraction). The soil became dirt. It has been
helpful to me in my own spiritual work to strive
toward restoring a more balanced, healthy
understanding of the relationship between
transcendence and engagement.